GENEROUS A Poem by Ibtisam Barakat

I have known a thousand kinds of death: death of a plant on the window sill, death of a pet that listened more than a mother, death of a big dream because I could not find a big warm room for it in cold weather. . . Not even one death was kind as it took without permission. But all were generous: offering an absence -- a fierce sunset followed by a feared darkness without which I would never have befriended the moon, and the guiding stars in myself.

Note: the poem GENEROUS was written in response to an image by artist Therese Whang, titled Epilogue, in the context of the art-and-poetry show INTERPRETATIONS where artists interpreted text by images, and writers interpreted creative images by text. This poem was published in the anthology INTERPRETATIONS by the Columbia Art League, 2013.